Without Wayne Rooney, the game is up for England and reckless Manchester United

Wednesday 17 February 2010 08:22 BST

Head boy: Wayne Rooney leaps to make it 2-1 at the San Siro as his one‑man rescue mission takes a step nearer success

Milan 2-3 Manchester United

Until the awakening of the man we passionately hope is the spirit of a World Cup yet to come, it fell to the ghosts of World Cups past to rule this breathlessly bewildering game at the San Siro.

With Wayne Rooney a tetchily isolated observer up front, the grand old timers of AC Milan — Ronaldinho, Andrea Pirlo and, yes, for a while even David Beckham — should have settled this tie long before the freakiest equaliser in memory.

United were sensationally atrocious throughout a first half in which their entire defence launched a kamikaze mission.

What, the Sky Sports reporter had asked Alex Ferguson in the tunnel before kick off, are Beckham's talents? "Well," replied the florid faced Scot, racking his mind for the faintest of praise with which to damn an erstwhile beloved, "set-pieces . . ." Beckham waited precisely two minutes to confirm that mean spirited yet startlingly original analysis, whipping in the right wing free-kick that enabled Patrice Evra to give us his Gus Caesar flapping-pitiably-at-a-cross impression. Ronaldinho did the rest with the aid of a deflection. United were on the ropes and punchy.

The Brazilian sorcerer was rampant thereafter, tormenting the wretched Evra, Johnny Evans and Rio Ferdinand despite the limitations of a black turban apparently borrowed from the Goldfinger-era Shirley Bassey, who was bare-headed at The Brits over on ITV1 (I had to keep flicking over, just to see how livid Cheryl Cole was looking).

Goldenballs was pretty impressive too, looking sharp and creative in open play down the right during an opening half hour in which Milan should have doubled and even trebled their lead. Here was the United of May's Champions League Final capitulation to Barcelona. Flat, spiritless, docile, disorganized and clueless, they seemed, much like Joseph Goebbels in the song, to have no balls at all.

What they did have was a gigantic splodge of luck, as Paul Scholes air kicked a right wing cross from one of United's first attacks — this after 36 minutes — and watched in elated mystification as the ball hit his standing leg and fizzed gyroscopically in off Dida's post.

Milan might have regained the lead before half-time, with Edwin van der Sar's calming competence the visitors' solitary asset. But early in the second, once Alexandre Pato wasted a headed chance you'd have backed Cyril Smith to take while giving Nicholas Soames a piggy back, the realisation that it was not to be their night drained their energy and invention.

Into the void stormed Rooney. He terrorised Milan single-handedly, time and again running at bamboozled defenders and drawing saves from Dida.

With United now as dominant as Milan had been earlier, the lead provided by his exquisitely cushioned, looping header felt inevitable. So did his second a little later, when the tireless Darren Fletcher found him unmarked in the box for as gorgeously laconic a headed goal as even the training ground could provide.

Over at The Brits, meanwhile, Cheryl was finally making her wedding ring-free appearance, badly miming Fight For This Love with a face hinting more at castration by meat cleaver than touching rapprochement. A couple of Spice Girls (not Victoria) had come and gone by now, and so in Milan had Posh's old man. When the equally venerable substitute Clarence Seedorf cutely turned in a Ronaldinho cross late on, the pendulum swung violently once again.

The frantic closing minutes saw Milan waste three glorious chances — one blown by yet another blast from the past, Filippo Inzaghi — to make it 3-3. But although the anonymous Michael Carrick thoughtfully reminded us that he was on the pitch by being sent off it, United clung on for an ill deserved victory. Relieved as they must feel to have this tie in the bag, they will know that replicating the first-half fecklessness against Chelsea or Barcelona in a future round would be fatal.

They have all the frailty of a one-man team right now. When that one man happens to Wayne Rooney, wondrously realising the full potential of a uniquely precocious adolescence, and as Sir Alex observed currently a worthy rival to Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo to be considered the planet's finest, they have a shot at winning any trophy. Lose him to injury, needless to add, and the game is up.

The same goes, in spades, for England. In April it will be four years since he suffered the broken metatarsal that traditionally punctures realistic hope of a second major international trophy.

Watching him pulverise Milan (and he could have scored five), I found myself fantasising about a military coup, and the benign dictatorship of a ruler, possibly General Sir Richard Dannatt, whose first act would be to stick this ferocious talent under house arrest until the plane leaves for South Africa.

Failing that, it behoves all patriots to pray for luck. If it's anything like United's last night, we might just be all right.